Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Lost Art

It is often a hard and strange thing to make changes in our lives. The world is an ever changing place where traditions die out and new ones begin. While it is good to change and progress there are somethings that should always be similar no matter what day and age you live in. No matter how hard people try, there will always be those who oppose and this is the case with traditions. Today there are the traditions, that to some have become a lost art. Of one art in particular I have thought a lot about in the past few months. This is the art of courtship.

Today we live in a world where the morals of dating and marriage are constantly changing. There seems to be a lack of commitment and pride in a relationship. There was once a time when the media of the world didn't change the opportunity to date and be social. People could meet in person and talk. It wasn't a hard thing to ask someone on a date instead of just going to hang out. Facebook or texting was never a means to ask someone out. For me, I am a person who enjoys Tradition. For me, I feel that the world as it has made some things so easy, has made other things so hard.

I was talking to my sister the other day about how hard it is sometimes to know exactly what people are saying when it comes in the form of a text or facebook message. Sometimes you think it sounds rude or mean, but the person sending it wants it to sound funny or cute. While I feel that these new technologies are a great thing, dating is one way that does not need to change. We date to find someone to spend eternity with and spending eternity with someone is a huge commitment. A commitment that if we are to keep we need to really get to know the person we are going to marry. Satan knows how hard marriage can be and if he can use technology to put up a false wall for people he knows he can use it to tear apart a family.

Gawain and Gayle Wells teach us in an Ensign article about the importance of coutship. "When we were teenagers, we had the notion that courtship would be a blissful period of strolling down shady lanes hand-in-hand, looking deep into each other’s eyes, and planning the future. This period, we were sure, would immediately precede “happily ever after.”
In reality, we found it to be a time of great adjustment and compromise. Courtship is a time of abandoning independence and learning interdependence. It is the process of developing a trusting, sharing relationship, of learning to listen and really hear, of caring about the other and sharing self. You might say it is a “tenderizing” experience."

To have this experience one needs to spend time with the person they will marry. We cannot know for sure if the person we are to marry is the right one unless we take the time to get to know all we can about them.